Different operational tools carriers with variously designed retention bodies for accepting one or several layers of operational tools, such as pocket tools or tool cards, for example, are known in the art. However, such traditional operational tools carriers do not meet all the requirements placed on them.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,986 describes a pocket knife consisting of a base unit equipped with cover plates. Provided on the base unit, facing the first cover plate and disposed in a plane extending parallel to the first cover plate are a series of separated compartments designed to accept functional elements such as a compass, fish hooks etc. Facing the other cover plate and separated from the compartments is an additional slot into which a knife blade can be retracted. One of the cover plates is transparent and detachably screwed to the base unit. The drawback of this earlier pocket knife design lies in the fact that when the functional components are ready to be used, they must be removed from the compartment in which each functional component is stored loosely. Thus, it is first necessary to unscrew the entire cover plate, then the functional component's compartment can be accessed for removal of the functional component from the compartment. Therefore, quick removal of the needed functional components from the knife is not possible since there is a disassembly process, and, since they functional components are stored loosely in the compartments, there is a chance that the functional components could get tangled in the compartment.
WO Publication 99/56918 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,045 both describe a pocket knife with an LCD display integrated into the cover plate. The knife includes a holder with two mutually facing side panels each of which has a cover plate fastened in a fixed fashion thereto. The cover plate is provided with a recess which accepts the LCD display. The area surrounding the LCD display is opaque rather than transparent. The drawback here is that much of the area of the cover plate is taken up by the fixed LCD display, prohibiting the storage of other functional elements in the cover plate.
Another example of prior art that has a drawback is British Patent No. 2,051,009. This patent describes a drill-bit cartridge which features storage blocks with two parallel, directly neighboring, rows of consecutive nests for drill bits. Along one lateral surface, the storage nests are provided with access openings which can be closed off by means of a sliding shutter that rolls over the lateral surface between the ridges extending along the edge of the storage unit. The shutter-like closure is provided, in a direction perpendicular to the movement of the closure, with two mutually distant openings which in a particular relative position line up with the access opening of the storage block, permitting the removal of the selected drill bit from the cartridge. By virtue of the design of this drill-bit cartridge, i.e., of the predetermined relative position of the opening in the shutter and, respectively, of the access opening in the storage block, it is possible to remove only one drill bit at any one time. While the access opening for one drill bit is released, allowing the removal of one drill bit, the other access openings are blocked by the shutter, preventing the removal of another drill bit from another storage nest. The drawback, however, of this design lies in the bulk of the block-shaped storage unit and the associated, correspondingly costly amount of material involved.
Various plastics materials are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,851 describes a tape measure with two mutually facing housing half sections. One of the two sections features a writable surface. The writable surface consists of a transparent plastic material, covering a decorative panel between the housing section and the transparent plate. U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,406 describes a method for producing heat-resisting containers from laminated plates. The laminate consists of an amorphous polymer such as polyethylene terepthalate. However, such materials have never been applied more broadly to the operational tools carrier art in any manner prior to the present invention.
A well known form of an operational tools carrier is a pocket tool, such as a pocket knife. Typical pocket tools are formed by layering a plurality of substantially flat tools (e.g., blades, saws, files, a cap lifter, a bottle opener, a lanyard, etc.) and spacer plates in a sandwich. An outer layer, known as a “scale,” on either side of the tool provides a grasping surface for the pocket tool and forms a part of the exterior housing. Tool cards, which are a newer form of an operational tools carrier, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,967 to Painsith, have a substantially flat, card-shaped carrier or housing formed from a pair of plates spaced apart to provide a planar space or compartment therebetween in which substantially flat tools may be stored.
Both the scales of pocket tools and the plates of tool cards have heretofore been formed from a substantially opaque durable material. For instance, pocket tool scales may be formed from any desired material, such as metal, wood, plastics, thermoplastics, or nylon. Therefore, any written material, such as words, logos, or other indicia, must be provided on the exterior surface of the scales or plates, such as by printing or embossing, or other known methods. However, because the written material is only on an exterior surface, it is vulnerable to being worn away if it is not inlaid into the material of the scale or plate. Although inlays are longer lasting, they are also significantly more expensive than a more superficial application of written material to the exterior of the scale or plate.
Another disadvantage of the use of an opaque material for a scale is that objects stored in interior compartments in the scale (e.g., “scale tools” such as a toothpick, a pen, or tweezers) are not readily identifiable, since typically only a small grasping portion extends to a visible, accessible position. Thus, unless the user is very familiar with the location or other identifying aspects of the tool stored in the scale, the user must grasp the grasping portion of a tool and partially extend the tool from its respective storage compartment in order to determine if the desired tool has been selected.
A similar disadvantage occurs with the use of an opaque material for the plate of a tool card. As with the scale tools, the tools in the tool card typically only have a small grasping portion extending to a visible, accessible position. Thus, unless the user is very familiar with the location or other identifying aspects of the tools stored in the tool card, the user must grasp the grasping portion of a tool and partially extend the tool from its respective storage compartment in order to determine if the desired tool has been selected.
Likewise, it is desirable to determine if a particular storage compartment is the one designated for a particular operational tool to be inserted therein. In various instances, if an operational tool is inserted into an improperly sized or configured storage compartment, either the tool or the compartment or both may be damaged.